Exhibition 'Struikelsteentjes in Maastricht'
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Exhibition ‘Struikelsteentjes in Maastricht’ 13 April till 30 May 2016 City Hall Centre Céramique, Maastricht Introduction 350 Stumbling Stones for the Nazi victims of Maastricht During the Second World War, over 350 inhabitants of Maastricht were deported en murdered by the Nazi’s. A Stumbling Stone creates a lasting memory to these Maastricht Jews, Sinti and resistance fighters. Stumbling Stones are placed in the pavement right in front of the houses from which victims were deported. Up to today, one can find, 125 Stumbling Stones in and throughout Maastricht, all of them placed and financed by private individuals. Stumbling Stones facilitate the commemoration of victims of the Nazi regime on a local level. Those who were brutally taken from their homes now have a tangible monument of their own. But when searching for Stumbling Stones, what should you look for? Stumbling Stones are small, concrete bricks of 10 by 10 centimetres with a layer of brass on top, on which the personal details of Nazi victims – their names, their birth dates, and the time and place of their murders – are die-cut manually. Stumbling Stones tell us about the 1 victims of the Nazi ideology; those who were killed for being who they were – be their identity based on religion or on personal convictions. Characterized by its own unique inscription, each stone reveals an individual fate, allowing it to be publicly recognized. Public recognition This sense of recognition by a wider audience is essential. The suffering can never be made undone, but public recognition ensures that the relatives of the victims are now able to connect to the Jewish citizens and resistance fighters from whom they descend. A European Project The processes of recognition and commemoration which are triggered by Stumbling Stones transcend borders of a nation. The Stumbling Stones are a European project initiated by German artist Gunter Demnig (1947), who placed the first Stolpersteine (translated as ‘Stumbling Stones’, ‘Pavés de Mémoire’, ‘Struikelsteentjes’, or ‘Gedenkklinker’) in Cologne in 1995 and in Berlin in 1996. In 2007, the first Dutch Stumbling Stone was placed in the village of Borne in the region of Twente. Since 2012, Stumbling Stones are placed in Maastricht. Once they entered the streetscape of Maastricht, Stumbling Stones have also become more and more common in Sittard-Geleen, Valkenburg, Heerlen and Kerkrade. At the moment, 56.000 Stumbling Stones have been placed across 1600 European cities and villages in countries varying from Norway to Ukraine to the 2 Netherlands to Italy. Demnig chose the term ‘Stolpersteine’, or ‘Stumbling Stone’ because he wants people to literally stumble over a stone, both with their minds and with their hearts. Towards the future In practice this means that people stop, reflect and bend over to read the details of the lives and deaths of the former residents. Stumbling Stones are a European homage on local scale in your own neighbourhood, causing one to not solely reconsider the past, but also the present and the future. Embedded in the current anti- discrimination movement, a Stumbling Stone not only generates both a sense of remembrance of the past and prevention of such a tragedy in the future. The acknowledgement of WWII war crimes is thought to aid the prevention of anything similar in the future. Denial, however, may be seen as a continuation of the genocide. Awareness and cooperation with movements that fight against discrimination and for the rights of refugees is of great importance. In relation to these beliefs, a Stumbling Stone is more than a place to remember and commemorate. Rather, it represents a building block for a better society and a warning from the past, translated into the present. 3 On the Second World War in Maastricht Of the 350 citizens deported from Maastricht, over 50 belonged to the resistance movement of the Landelijke Organisatie Hulp aan Onderduikers, abbreviated ‘LO’ (the National Organization for Aid to Persons in Hiding). While the majority of the Jewish, Sinti and Roma populations of Limburg were deported in groups throughout the war, nearly all members of the Maastricht resistance were arrested in two mere days. On May 9 and 10, 1942, the betrayal of the 25-year-old Ms. Zeguers-Boere lead to the arrest of a substantial segment of the Maastricht resistance was arrested. 50 fighters of the Dutch resistance were arrested by the local Sicherheitspolizei (SIPO) and interrogated by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) – the German Secret Services, whose activities were often deeply intertwined with those of the SIPO. Many of the Stumbling Stones, are in honor and commemoration of these members of the Maastricht resistance. Their personal stories are often intertwined with those of the people they tried to protect: Jews from Maastricht or elsewhere who were brutally murdered between 1939 and 1945, as well as the happy few that managed to escape such a horrible fate. 4 [Pommée] The First ‘Gypsy’ Arrests of in Limburg Maria Agnes Pommée is born on 17 August, 1939, at the Gronsvelderweg in Maastricht. She grows up in a Sinti family of eight children, amongst three sisters: Maria Francisca, Anna and Margaretha, and four older brothers: Dirk-Hendrik, Johannes Hubertus, Karel and Antoon. All children are born in different towns in Limburg, as – like most Sinti – the family regularly changes its place of residence. Father Benedictus, born in Rotterdam, is a painter. His wife, Anne, originates from Stromberg, Germany. The family Pommée lives in a trailer park, called ‘De Kleine Heide’ in Venlo. Raid at ‘De Kleine Heide’ On May 14, 1944, the Sicherheitspolizei (the Germand Security Police) orders the arrest all Dutch Sinti and Roma. As most local police forces don’t really know who belongs to the Roma or the Sinti, arrests are primarily based on the physical appearances of what police officers believe to be ‘Gypsies’. Early in the morning of May 16, 23 persons are forced to leave ‘De Kleine Heide’. Among them is the family Pommée. Before 8 o’clock in the morning, the unfortunate group of 23 is transported to camp Westerbork. Five days later, on May 19, mother, father and children Pommée are sent from Westerbork to Auschwitz. 5 A family Torn Apart The Pommées find themselves on a transport of 453 people of which 245 are Sinti and Roma. Three days after departure from Westerbork, mother Anne dies due to the pitiful circumstances of the transport, right before arrival at Auschwitz. As soon as the train stops in the camp, father Pommée is separated from his children and is transferred to Mittelbau-Dora, an external section of camp Buchenwald. In Mittelbau-Dora, he is forced to build, among other things, V2 rockets, which would later be used against the UK. Benedictus Pommée dies on March 8, 1945, at the age of 38. Gassed Maria Agnes Pommée is four years old when she and her seven siblings are gassed in Auschwitz-Birkenau (II), the camp division for women and children, on, or right after the 2nd of August, 1944. Settela Steinbach: not Jewish, but Sinti In Westerbork, on May 19, 1944 – the exact day on which the Pommée family is transported – the German-Jewish photographer and prisoner, Rudolf Breslauer, takes a photo of the nine–year-old Settela Steinbach, peeking through the doors of a transportation wagon that just arrived in camp Westerbork. Several decades later, the photo has become the symbol of the Nazi prosecution of the Jews – incorrectly, as it turns out in December 1994, when journalist Aad Wagenaar 6 discovers that the unknown girl in fact is Settela Steinbach: not a Jewish, but a Sinti girl. Settela is born on December 23, 1934, in Buchten, a small village in the centre of Limburg. She is the seventh child of the ten children of Heinrich and Emilia Steinbach. Settela arrives at camp Westerbork on the 16th of May. Here, she then spends three days in barrack 69 before she is placed on transport to Auschwitz. In the night of 31 July, 1944, she is gassed, together with her mother and four of her siblings. None of her other five siblings survive. [Jo Lokerman] Betraying Resistance Fighter Jo Lokerman From the first day of the German occupation onwards, Jo Lokerman is involved in the resistance. As soon as the Germans occupy Maastricht, train driver Lokerman causes a little riot which allows several Belgian war prisoners to escape. This aside, he quickly gets involved with the spreading of illegal newspapers such as Vrij Nederland and Het Parool and smuggles allied pilots out of the country. When the trade unions decide to conform to German rules and demands, Jo decides to 7 end his membership of the Dutch Association of Trade Unions, which automatically leads to his degradation. ‘Good Evening, Thijs’ In line with his social democratic background, (Jo is a member of the city council for the SDAP, the Social Democratic Workers’ Party) Jo becomes chairman of the Maastricht department of the LO, a national organization that offers help to those in hiding. He arranges hiding places for Jews and prisoners of war and provides them with distribution coupons (for food), until he is betrayed by the 25-year-old Ms. Zeguers-Boere, who pretends to be a member of the resistance movement. After winning the trust of the LO by providing shelter for a Jew in hiding in her own home at the Sint Servaasklooster 37, Ms. Zeguers Boere informs the Sicherheitspolizei (SIPO) about an important LO meeting at the Ummels butchery in the Wolfstraat. More by hit than by wit, Jo is ill that night and thereby evades his arrest. At the evening of May 9, however Jo attends a meeting at the house of Ms Zeguers-Boere herself.